Who We Are

In Columbia's center-city are some of her greatest needs, along with some of her greatest opportunities. Imagine a community of faith that sinks her roots deeply into Columbia's center, resolving to engage and serve the culture. See her answering the city’s questions. See her touching that neighborhood's hurts. Watch her being a force for good and blessing in the center of the city. Picture a church that proclaims the glory of God and the wonder of the gospel, without compromise, within that culture. Imagine a church that shatters stereotypes by proclaiming truth, while also living with compassion. See the grace of God being proclaimed and being lived out by members of a close-knit, loving community. Imagine that church being concerned less with becoming another super-center, and more about growing the kingdom of God. See a community of faith that trains her own within her midst and sends Christians out to start churches and reach cultures. See a city changed—see the world impacted—from the inside-out. This is the Karis vision.

Karis exists to be a gospel community on mission that is for the city and for the kingdom. Our desire is to live out that mission in Columbia's city-center in a way that reverberates out through our city and beyond. We long to see more and more people come to know Jesus. We want disciples to multiply. We want each network or neighborhood in Columbia to encounter the gospel of Jesus. We want our Missional Communities to multiply. We pray that our church will be a training and sending ground for missionaries to our city and to the world. We want leaders to multiply. We desire to see new congregations planted throughout Mid-Missouri and to the ends of the earth. We want our church to multiply. Gospel, community, and mission - more and more of it until Jesus returns. For the City, and for the Kingdom. Will you join us?

Karis exists to be a gospel community on mission that is for the city and for the kingdom.

This is what we’re all about:

GOSPEL the good news about Christ’s person and work and how it speaks hope into every detail of our lives

COMMUNITY the blessing of sharing life with other followers of Jesus, helping and being helped in living out that gospel

MISSION the calling to take that gospel as a community into our city, loving her in word and deed

FOR THE CITY being known for seeking the good of our community, spreading the peace of the gospel across Mid-Missouri

FOR THE KINGDOM Looking beyond ourselves, equipping and sending leaders for the future from Columbia to the ends of the earth